It is worth reminding readers here of the general rule that all borrowings from other sources must be acknowledged. When you repeat the actual words of another person, you should put them into quotation marks. (It is good practice to put them into quotation marks from the first time you make a note of them while doing research.) When you paraphrase the words of another person, you should show by means of an allusion or citation that the idea comes from another person:Arnold Roberts insists that "no such undertaking was ever made." According to Arnold Roberts, his organization made no promises to the claimants. But another source suggests that no promise was made to the claimants (Roberts 2005, 24). It is good to use quotations in essays and similar pieces of work to show that you have read widely and to back up your own ideas with statements from other authorities. It is unwise, however, to use too many quotations, in case you give the impression of relying too heavily on other people's ideas. When you do quote, you should quote only as much of another person's text as is necessary to reinforce your point. This may sometimes require you to omit part of a text. You may also have to alter the exact wording of the quotation to make it fit grammatically into your own text. Let us look briefly at the rules for inserting quotations.A short quotation can often be fitted into a sentence without additional punctuation, other than quotation marks:When exactly is this "mother of all parties" you've been talking about actually going to take place? A longer and more formal quotation is usually introduced by a colon, and if it consists of a full sentence, it begins with a capital letter:Smith's position on the question is quite clear: "There is simply no conclusive evidence that human activity is the principal clause of global warming." If you wish to insert a very long quotation, of say 60 words or more, it is best to insert it as a block separated by a space from the text above and below and indented:Sandra B. Jones ingeniously relates the experience of eternity to a phenomenon that we all become aware of as we grow older: As we reach middle age, we suddenly become conscious that the days, the months, and the years are passing much more rapidly than they did when we were younger. By the time we reach the age of eighty or ninety, we barely seem to have stood up from the breakfast table on one morning before we are sitting down to it again on the next. If people ask me how we could possibly bear the endless succession of days in eternity, I remind them of this fact and tell them that since time can accelerate for us like this when we are in the body, a whole age may pass in an eye blink once we are in the spirit. I find this thought immensely comforting…. A quotation set out as above is called a "block quotation," "extract," or "excerpt." Because it is separated from the main body of the text, it should not be put in quotation marks.Quotations within QuotationsIf you have put a passage into quotation marks, you should use single quotation marks for any quoted words that appear inside it:"What Shakespeare actually wrote," Barnaby interrupted, "was 'All that glisters is not gold,' not 'All that glitters.' " The only exception is in a block quotation. The fact that a block quotation has no quotations marks around it enables double quotation marks to be used for quoted words that fall within it.Adjusting QuotationsLet us assume that the original passage from which you wish to quote reads as follows:Work in these factories is seasonal, with the bulk of production taking place between September and April, which results in many workers being laid off during the summer months and joining the throngs who seek to make a living from tourism. You might wish to quote some, but not all, of this rather long sentence. When you omit any words from a quoted passage, you should indicate the fact by inserting an ellipsis (…):Cummings further notes that: "Work in these factories is seasonal, … which results in many workers being laid off during the summer months." You do not need to place an ellipsis at the end, however, simply because you have not written out the original sentence in full.If you need to change any of the words within a quotation, for example, to make the quotation fit within the run of your own text, you should mark the change by enclosing it in brackets:Because they cannot rely upon all-year employment in the factories, "workers [join] the throngs who seek to make a living from tourism." You should also use brackets if you wish to introduce your own explanation into a quotation:Cummings informs us that "Work in the factories is seasonal, with the bulk of production taking place between September and April [the main growing season], which results in many workers being laid off during the summer months." Whatever you leave out or interpolate, make sure not to change the basic meaning of the passage you are quoting.Italics in QuotationsWriters sometimes italicize certain words in a quotation in order to highlight them because they are especially important to the argument. However, it is perfectly possible that italics might have been used in the original script. In order that the reader should not be misled, whenever a quotation contains words in italics, you should always indicate whether they formed part of the original or have been added. If you add italics, put a note in parentheses after the quotation: (italics added) or (my italics). If they were in the original, the usual formula is (emphasis in original).
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